A few stories
Schmeichel!
I grew up hearing my parents speaking Yiddish to their parents. For me, it was an old people’s language. Now I hear Yiddish every day, and I have to speak it too. Especially to little boys, who usually don’t know any English.
Feet tsuzamen! Hand in tash! Shtei groot! Kick du. Schmeichel!
When my limited Yiddish fails me, I move their bodies with my hands. Feet together. Hand in the pocket. Stand up straight. Look here. Smile!
Walk and Talk
Every wedding follows the very same script: first there is the reception, then the ceremony under the chuppah (wedding canopy), then there’s the meal, then the dancing starts.
There is a break during dancing for dessert. That’s when I have to take a picture of the kallah (bride) with all her classmates, sometimes as many as fifty of them. The girls pose for the class picture at every wedding, they know what to do. Nevertheless, I always struggle to gather them. I warn them in advance, even before the dancing starts. “I can’t do it without you,” I say.
When the music stops, I set up chairs in front of the stage for the girls. The bride is surrounded by women congratulating her. I go around the room and ask every older teen, “Are you a classmate?” “Please go to the chairs.”
The break is short and I have a job to do. So when it’s time for the bride to join them, I go to her and push her as gently as I can in the direction of the stage. “Walk and talk,” I tell her, while she continues to give and receive blessings.
They All Want Me!
At the end of the night, a girl approaches me-she is all excited.
“I just turned 18!! Take my picture,” she says laughing, “they all want me!”
By “they” she means all the other mothers and grandmothers at the reception. Everybody is looking for a good match for their sons or grandsons.
Family Picture
Just after the ceremony is over, the couple heads to the yichud room where they will be alone for exactly nine minutes. Before they enter, the two fathers quickly check no one is hiding in a closet. Then the couple goes in, and the fathers wait outside.
This is the couple's first truly private moment. The forbidden has now become a mitzvah (commandment).
Meanwhile, I go into the picture room and set up for family and couples pictures. After the nine minutes are over, the bride has her wig fitted and the groom’s father and his eleven brothers arrive in the small picture room. The groom joins them. Chaos breaks out. The men noisily hug the groom, kiss, and joke with him. They start singing, jumping and dancing in a circle. The mother remains outside the room, watching from the threshold.
I am squeezed into a corner, standing on a chair, shooting as much as possible of the happy and noisy gathering. For once, I am not kicked out.
When it’s over, I set up chairs for all the men and their wives to take the family picture. The mother, laughing, turns to me and says, “Can you imagine my house?”
You Have Been There Before
One afternoon I drive to the Catskill Mountains and get lost.
It's not my first time upstate, but it’s still unfamiliar to me. I arrive in front of the building I think is my destination, a very large boys' school, hidden from the main road.
Dozens of little boys are playing in the front, unsupervised. Eventually a man appears and I ask him for directions. He can’t help me. Another man up the road is just as useless.
Next, I ask a woman pushing a stroller uphill. She recognizes me and exclaims, “You have been there before!” Then she directs me towards a hall I had worked in six months earlier.
“I’ll see you there,” she says, “the bride is my niece.”